Land is valuable. As they say, there's no more being made so it's a limited supply, and if you have a piece of ground to call your own you will always have someplace to live, even if you dwell in a tent. You'll always have a place to sow your spuds and you won't go hungry like they did in Black '47.
For the Irish, owning a corner of the earth has great psychological value. Keep in mind that there was a time when they weren't allowed to be landowners, under the decrees of the British who tried to drive the Irish out of their own country. It's ingrained, after all those centuries.
There's a larger rift in the family than is obvious in that Donegal courtroom, however. You can just barely see it, right there between the matriarch of the Gildea clan and her brother, the late owner of said farm.
Mrs. Gildea and her sons have taken up common cause against her daughter Nora. It was Nora who was left the farm by her uncle after he died in 2007. He passed over his own sister, ignored his nephews, and painted a bright line around the boundaries of family loyalty. Not as evident as Mrs. Gildea and sons on one side of the courtroom in Letterkenny, with daughter Nora on the other, but it's clear than William John Kennedy stood with his niece on her side of the rift.
Land is valuable, and Nora Kelly got something of value that sparked jealousy among those who were left out. Mother and brothers are contesting the will, seeking a piece of the property or the entire farm outright.
Mrs. Gildea doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. She claims that her brother had no right to the land in the first place, that the will that left it to him in the 1930's isn't valid.
A bit late to be contesting that version, isn't it?
Her sons claim that they have been using parts of the farm so it's theirs, but that tack comes from Italy where squatter's rights trump ownership. Mrs. Gildea thinks she should be entitled to the farm because she worked on it in her younger days, as if sweat equity has equal value to the euro.
She might have been better off asking her brother for wages, back when she was supposedly working the land while raising nine children. He didn't think much of her years of toil, if indeed she did any work on the farm, or he might have left her a little something by way of thanks. But as he didn't leave her the farm, he must not have been impressed with her skills in animal husbandry or horticulture.
The family rift is clear. It is up to a judge to decide which side is right and which side will be left out. In the end, however, the chasm that developed between a daughter and her extended family will be too large to cross. Then the neighbors will choose up sides and gossip behind Mrs. Gildea's back.
Mrs. Gildea will stew in her bitterness for the rest of her days, short though they may be. All for a small farm, twelve hectares tucked away in Donegal.
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